Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Ancestry.com Inc. to Acquire Archives.com

PROVO,
Utah, April 25, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ancestry.com Inc.
(Nasdaq:ACOM) announced today it has entered into a definitive agreement
to acquire Archives.com, a family history website, for approximately
$100 million in cash and assumed liabilities.
This transaction will enable Ancestry.com to add a differentiated
service targeted to a complementary segment of the growing family
history category. In addition, Ancestry.com will welcome a team of
talented engineers, digital marketers, and family history innovators
into the Ancestry.com fold and also gain access to a proprietary
technology platform that has supported Archives.com's rapid growth.
Archives.com is owned and operated by Inflection LLC, a Silicon
Valley-based technology company. Since Archives.com's launch in January
2010, the site has rapidly grown to more than 380,000 paying subscribers
who pay approximately $39.95 a year. Archives.com offers access to over
2.1 billion historical records, including birth records, obituaries,
immigration and passenger lists, historical newspapers, and U.S. and
U.K. Censuses.
"Archives.com has built a fantastic and fast-growing business that we
think is highly complementary to Ancestry.com's online family history
offering," said Tim Sullivan, President and Chief Executive Officer of
Ancestry.com. "We love their focus on making family history simple and
affordable, and we are excited to help the talented Archives.com team
continue to grow alongside Ancestry.com, Fold3.com, and Family Tree
Maker."
"Family history remains a dynamic and growing online category," added
Sullivan. "Archives.com's focus is consistent with our mission to help
everyone discover, preserve and share their family history, which will
help continue our efforts in delivering amazing discoveries to an even
broader audience."
Over the past two years, Archives.com has partnered with multiple
well-known family history organizations that have helped build out
Archives.com robust collection of family history records. Most recently,
Archives.com partnered with the U.S. National Archives to provide free
digital access to the recently released 1940 U.S. Federal Census.
"We are proud of the experience we've built with Archives.com and
believe strongly in its future potential," said Matthew Monahan, CEO and
Co-Founder of Inflection. "Combining with Ancestry.com positions
Archives.com to best capitalize on that potential, pairing complementary
visions of the marketplace and the opportunity. We've long admired
Ancestry.com's content and technology and the innovations that the
Ancestry.com team continues to bring to market. We're excited to see how
this transaction expands the reach of family history to an even larger
audience."
Upon completion of the transaction, which is subject to customary
closing conditions, including expiration of the HSR waiting period,
Ancestry.com will continue to operate Archives.com separately retaining
its brand and website. Multiple Inflection employees, including key
product and engineering executives are expected to join the Ancestry.com
team.

About Ancestry.com
Ancestry.com Inc. (Nasdaq:ACOM) is the world's largest online family
history resource, with more than 1.8 million paying subscribers. More
than 9 billion records have been added to the site in the past 15 years.
Ancestry users have created more than 34 million family trees
containing approximately 4 billion profiles. In addition to its
flagship site, Ancestry.com offers several localized Web sites designed
to empower people to discover, preserve and share their family history.About Archives.com
Archives.com is a leading family history website that makes discovering
family history simple and affordable. The company has assembled more
than 2.1 billion historical records all in a single location. Archives
also partners with other leading family history websites to provide a
comprehensive resource for researching your family history. Archives.com
is free to try for seven days, allowing anyone to explore the benefits
of membership without risk or obligation. For more information and to
start discovering your family history, please visit http://www.archives.com/.About Inflection
Inflection is a Big Data and e-commerce startup headquartered in the
heart of Silicon Valley. Leveraging its proprietary technology
platform, the company has built innovative data services like Archives.com, PeopleSmart.com, and Identity.com. Inflection was founded in 2006 and is backed by tier-one venture capitalists Matrix Partners and Sutter Hill Ventures.

I guess so, Kris. I imagine that it also means that Family Tree DNA will no longer be partnering with Archives.com. :-( BTW, I just posted one of your articles (Genealogy Widower) on s=my social media a couple of days ago. I loved it!

Thanks, Jim! I haven't been blogging much on this blog anymore because I have focused my efforts on my other one - Your Genetic Genealogist - www.yourgeneticgenealogist.comI hope to get back to this one someday when I have more time. :-)